/ 



SKETCH OF THE LIFE 



OK 



JAMES G. BIRNEY, 



BY 



GEN. WILLIAM BIRNEY. 



PRICE TWENTT-FIVB CENl^^-..^ ._ 



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CHICAGO : 

National Christian Association, 
1884. 



\X^ Q» x^ o 



5 



We are authorized to state, that William Birney, 
Esq , Washington Gity^ I). C, second son of James 
(jr. Birney, is now engaged in writing a history of the 
growth, aggressions and fall of the Slave Power in 
the United States, including notices of the prominent 
pro-slavery and anti-slaver}^ men who figured before 
Abolition was accomplished; and that he is delayed 
in his work by the want of a complete collection of 
books and pamphlets relating to slaver3\ All per- 
sons owning such publications and willing to sell 
them, are requested to send lists of the same, with 
prices, to Mr. Birney. 

Editor Christian Cynosure. 



JAMES G. BIRNEY. 



HIS RELATION TO THE ANTI-SLAVERY 

MOVEMENT AND PLACE IN 

HISTORY. 



BY A LIBERTY PARTY VOTER OP 1840. 



The advent of James G. Bii:ney marked a new era in 
the anti-slavery movement. He was the first Abolitionist 
who, in that great division of our history which began 
with the Missouri Compromise and ended with the Re- 
bellion, conceived, attempted and achieved the organiza- 
tion of a national party on the principles of constitutional 
freedom. This is not inconsistent with the facts that 
Lundy had steadily advocated political action against 
slavery, and that Holley was the most active man in the 
nominating conventions of 1839 and 1840. The guid- 
ing and shaping influences of the infancy of the party 
now known as Republican were those of James G. Birney. 
His public career began in the summer of 1832 and came 
to a close in August, 1845. 

The father of James G. Birney was a native of north 
Irelaad. When sixteen years of age he migrated to the 
United States. After a thorough mercantile training in 
Philadelphia, he made his home at Danville, a flourishing 



town in the famous blue grass region of Kentucky. 
There be became a leading merchant, a manufacturer, and 
the president of the local bank. He was intelligent and 
well-informed, especially in politics and history; but he 
was chiefly remarkable for force of character. He was a 
personal friend of Henry Clay and his steady supporter. 
He built an Episcopal church, and was Dunctual in at- 
tendance on Sunday mornings. He paid a large part of 
the rector's salary and brought him home, after sermon, 
to dine; but, if occasion served, he handled his theological 
notions without gloves. He owned about thirty slaves 
and lived in good Kentucky style. His wife died when 
the subject of our sketch was three years of age. 

James G. Birney was born at Danville, '..February 
4, 1792. From early youth he was educated with a 
view to a career as a lawyer and statesman. After 
thorough preparation by private tutors and at Transylva- 
nia University, he was sent, in 1806, to the college at 
Princeton, New Jersey. 

That State was then passing through the experiences of 
gradual emancipation under a law passed in 1804. Slav- 
ery must have been frequently a topic of debate among 
the students, and the young Kentuckian must have be- 
come familiar with the idea of emancipation. There 
were Abolition societies then not only in New^ Jersey but 
in the neighboring States, and a biennial convention of 
them met in Philadelphia. The most illustrious men of 
the nation were members. Distinguished statesmen, in 
eluding Franklin, Jefferson, Jay and Hamilton had been 
or were then members. Congress, too, was maturing the 
laws against the slave trade, which were passed in 1807. 

For the first time in his life he was brought under the 
steady pressure of religious influence, and he saw^ the 
church represented by learned and able men. Though 



he did not become, during his college course, a convert 
either to Abolitionism or I'resbyterianism, the seeds 
of both were sown, and they germinated many years 
afterwards. He was graduated with the second honor in 
the class of 181U. The next year was passed in travel 
and in making the ac»juaintance of the leading j)ublic 
men of his native State. He was much noticed by Henry 
Clay and the friendly relations begun then lasted many 
years. 

In the autumn of 1811, he became a law student, at 
Philadelphia, in the office of Alexander J. Dallas, then 
United States District Attorney, and, in 1814, Secretary 
of the Treasury. He remained there until his admission 
to the bar in the spring of 1814, when he returned to 
Kentucky and entered at once upon the practice of the 
law. He had then resided nearly seven years in States 
in which gradual emancipation was taking place. His 
personal habits had been formed under the influence of 
free institutions, and his habits of thought were proba- 
bly more cosmopolitan than was then common in Ken- 
tucky. 

In 1815, he was elected to the Legislature and served 
two terms. In 1816, he married a daughter of Judge 
McDowell, United States District Judge, whose family 
connection was the largest and most influential one in the 
State. In the autumn of 1817, he removed to a cotton 
plantation near Huntsville, Alabama, taking with him 
about thirty slaves. 

Having traced our hero to what was apparently a poor 
training school for the anti-slavery champion of 1834, let 
us consider what manner of man he then was. He had 
inherited from his father a robust and active body. He 
had always been healthy, bright and vigorous. The 
father was a frank, bold and vehement man; the son was 



courasreous, and remarkable for his entire truthfulness 
and moral power. His manners were those of a genial 
and perfectly self-possessed man, accustomed to the best 
society. He had committed the freaks, follies and ex- 
travagances to be expected from a generous youth with 
an unlimited supply of money. In the South of his day, 
card-playing was common, and the side-board was always 
covered with cut-glass decanters. He was always free 
from the vice of tobacco chewing and profanity, He 
resided in Alabama fifteen years, 

"We will now glance hastily at certain events, bearing 
directly or indirectly on slavery, of the decade and a half 
of his Alabama residence. This was a most important 
epoch in the formation of our national character. 

During its course, immigration began to pour into the 
Northern States from Great Britain, caused by the hard 
times resulting from the great contraction of British cur- 
rency in 1819, and the industrial reaction after the Napo- 
leonic wars. Agitation on the subject of slavery was car- 
ried on in every civilized country as well as our own. In 
Great Britain, the discussion of colonial slavery was re- 
vived in 1820, and it was extended, in 1823, by 
the organization of the English Society for gradual abo- 
lition, and the passage in Parliament of an act greatly 
mitigating colonial slavery. Auxiliaries were formed, 
conventions were held, public addresses made, bills in- 
troduced into Parliament, and the publications of the 
Society, in the form of tracts, were scattered broadcast 
over Great Britain, and found their way into the United 
States. The works of Clarkson and speeches of Wilber- 
force had a large circulation, even in this country. En- 
glish newspapers were full of the subject and their arti- 
cles were copied by our press more freely than at a later 
period. The agitation in England was greatly increased 



by the slave insurrection which took place in Jamaica in 
December, 1831, and caused the destruction of fifteen 
millions of dollars worth of property and the massacre 
of four thousand persons. The whole civilized world 
stood appalled. In 1832. the British Government ado))t- 
ed the principle of compulsory gradual emancipation in 
the colonies, and a bill to that effect was brought in and 
passed August 28, 1833. It went into effect August 1, 
1834, and gave freedom to 800,000 slaves near our bor- 
ders. 

In 1826, Austria proclaimed the doctrine that any slave 
escaping to or brought upon her soil or upon one of her 
vessels became free. In the same year, Brazil passed an 
Emancipation Act; and in 1829. Mexico abolished slavery 
within her limits and extended freedom to the western 
boundary of Louisiana. The French Revolution of 1830 
gave increased activity to the discussion of the rights of 
man. It was followed, in 1831, by a convention between 
England and France, for the suppression of the slave 
trade. 

The Congressional debates on slavery followed each 
other almost without intermission during these fifteen 
years. Those relating to the admission of Missouri as a 
slave State convulsed the country. Parties were almost 
equally divided and the al)ility shown in the debate has 
never been surpassed. On the free State side more than 
thirty members distinguished themselves. Their speeches 
were widely circulated. The contest was carried into the 
next elections, and most of the Northern members who 
voted for the admission were not re-elected. In 1820. 
Congress legislated against the African slave trade; in 
1822, the President called for legislation of a more strin 
gent character on that subject; in 1823 and 1824, Con 
gress discussed it at length; and in 1829, the House of 



6 

Representatives, by a vote of 114 to 66, adopted a resolu- 
tion against the slave traffic in the District of Columbia, 
and instructed the Committee on the District of Columbia 
to inquire into the expediency of gradual abolition in 
that District. Part of the preamble is as follows: 

"Slave-dealers, gaining^ confidence from impunity, have made 
the seat of the Federal Government their headquarters for car- 
rying on the domestic slave trade". 

In 1822, a wide-spread conspiracy was formed at the 
South for the purpose of establishing slavery by law in 
the State of Illinois. To promote it, settlers with slaves 
were sent into the State, as they were sent into Kansas 
thirty years later. Resistance was made. The question 
was made a test one at the elections and was discussed on 
the stump in all parts of the State. The conspirators 
were finally defeated in 1824. In its day it was the sen- 
sational topic, and it kept fresh in the minds of the peo- 
ple the events of the great struggle of 1819-20. 

In 1828, more than a thousand citizens of the District 
of Columbia petitioned Congress against slavery and the 
slave traffic; and in 1829, the Grand Jury of the District 
made a presentment against the latter. In 1827, aboli- 
tion of slavery was finally effected in New York, and 
Alabama passed an act prohibiting the importation of 
slaves into her limits. About the same time the last ves- 
tiges of slavery disappeared in New Jersey and Pennsyl- 
vania. In Virginia there were, during the epoch under 
review, four years of almost continuous discussion of 
slavery. The State Convention of 1829-1830 gave much 
of its time to the subject, and the Legislatures of 1831- 
1832 brought out the best talent of the State in attack 
and defense. Very little, if anything, has since been 
added to the argument on either side, with the single ex- 
ception that the relation of the National Government t o 
slavery was not touched. The immediate cause of the 



debates in the Legislature was that a bloody slave insur- 
rection, headed by Nat Turner, had broken out in South- 
ampton county, Virginia, in August, \x-]\. It cost the 
lives of more than four hundred persous, black and 
white, and threw the State into the wildest commotion. 

Anti-slavery literature was not wanting. The tracts, 
periodicals and newspapers from England were abund- 
ant. Several anti-slavery volumes had been published 
by Americans: one by Elias Hicks, the Quaker, 1814; an- 
other by Dr. Jesse Torrey, of Philadelphia, in 1817; a 
third by James Duncan, of Indiana, in 1824; and a 
fourth by Rev. John llankin, a Presbyterian from Ken- 
tucky, 1824. The last was an able presentation of per- 
sonal experience and observation, and had a large circu- 
lation. In 1827, George M. Stroud, a Philadelphia law- 
yer, published a collection of all the laws of the several 
States relating to slavery. For effective value, this book 
by Stroud ranks with Theodore D. Weld's "Slavery as 
it is," and Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Eliza- 
beth M. Chandler published a book of anti-slavery 
poems of some merit. The different Abolition 
societies published addresses and reports. Among 
the best of these may be mentioned the Addrean 
to the, People of North Carolina in 183(», by the 
State Manumission Society. It was written by William 
Swain. Between 1820 and 1831 there were but four 
newspapers specially devoted to the abolition of slavery: 
Benjamin Lundy's was the most prominent. He had 
published it in Ohio, from 1816 to 1819. Elihu Embree, 
in 1820, published the Eniancipator, at Jonesborough in 
East Tennessee. On his' death, Lundy left Ohio, where 
he had been publishing a similar paper, and took charge 
of Embree's. He removed to Baltimore in 1824, 
and published it there until 1830, and afterwards in Phil- 



8 

adelphia. The other three were ''Tlie African Ob- 
aerver," at Philadelphia, " TJie Freedom's Journal," at 
New York, and "T7ie Liberal," at New Orleans. 
Some of the leading newspapers discussed freely 
the slavery question. Among these were the Cincinnati 
Gazette, edited by Charles Hammond. William Goodell 
wrote a poem against slavery as early as 1820, and arti- 
cles of the same kind in a newspaper at Providence as 
early as 1821; and Joshua Leavitt began his career in 
1825 as an anti-slavery newspaper writer. 

In the decade between 1820 and 1831, Abolition socie- 
ties were numerous. Tlie one established by Franklin 
at Philadelphia was the oldest. In 1815, Lundy had or- 
ganized several in Ohio, and they had multiplied. State 
societies and auxiliaries existed in New York, New Jer- 
sey, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and North Caro- 
lina. In 1826 the Manumission societies of North 
Carolina had three thousand members. A similar society 
existed in Loudon county, Va., and was active. The 
American Convention for Abolition met in 1823, 1826, 
1828, 1829, and perhaps in other years. In 1826 it had 
81 auxiliaries, of which 78 were in the South. With the 
mitigation of slavery and imminence of emancipation in 
the British colonies, the attention of the people of the 
Northern States was drawn more to slavery after 1823; 
discussion of the subject became general, and renewed 
activity was infused into the organization of societies. 
The effect of the bloody slave insurrection in Virginia 
in August, 1831, was to arrest this activity and enable the 
slave power to crush out abolition in Virginia and Ken- 
tucky, stop agitation in the slave States, get con- 
trol of the political parties of the country, inaugurate 
mob law against Abolitionists in the North, and push 
the scheme for the separation of Texas from Mexico 



with a view to its annexation to the Union as five or 
more slave States. 

In 1822 Mr. Birney gave up his cotton ])lantation and 
resumed the practice of law, and in 182I{ he removed to 
the city of Huntsville for that purpose. He was person- 
ally popular, and was at once elected solicitor, but re- 
signed at the end of a year because of the rapid increase 
of his civil business. He soon became the acknowledged 
leader of the bar in North Alabama, and was offered a 
seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the State, 
but declined. After 1824 he was placed in the political 
minority by his adhesion to Clay and Adams. He was 
one of the candidates in 1828 for elector on the Adams 
ticket, and, to carry some local measure, he was elected 
about 1829 to the Legislature. 

The turning point in his career was his profession of 
religion and connection with the Presbyterian church in 
the spring of 1826. Tlie change was sincere and vital. 
From that time he lived on a higher plane; his sympa- 
thies were enlarged and he sought to do good. He had 
been a Mason, but never entered a lodge after he joined 
the church, and, as his sons grew up, he cautioned them 
against joining any secret order. He contributed liberally 
to benevolent enterprises, aided in establishing at Hunts- 
ville an academy for boys and an institute for girls, and 
was the chief actor in establishing the State University. 
Having been the legal counsel ol the Cherokee nation, 
he became the eflicient protector of the Indians. He 
favored the Alabama law prohibiting the further impor- 
tation of slaves into that State. So far as appears 
he had never regarded slavery as a divine in- 
stitution or defended it on any ground of nat- 
ural right. In May, 18:'2, in a c nversation with Theo- 
dore D. Weld, he admitted that property in slaves 



10 

could not be defended on any sound, legal 
principles. He probably always looked on it as a 
political evil, harmful to the whites, entailed, un- 
avoidable and perhaps necessary in the culture of the 
great staple of the South. He thought it the duty of 
masters to be humane, not to separate families, and to 
provide well for the comfort of the slaves. His at- 
tention wa? first drawn to the subject in 1826, 
when an agent of the Colonization Society lectured in 
Huntsville. A society was formed in 1830 of which Mr. Bir- 
ney became a member. On the 21st of August, 1831, there 
occurred the massacre of women and children, in Vir- 
ginia, known as "The Southampton Insurrection." He 
began then to regard slavery as a constant menace and 
imminent danger to the South. His eyes were opened also 
to its corrupting influences upon the young. At that time 
he had seven children, six of them boys. In the winter 
of 1831-2 he decided to visit Illinois, with a view^ to a 
removal. This he did in the spring of 1832, and select- 
ed Jacksonville as the place of his future residence. He 
had advertised his property for sale when he received an 
unsolicited and unexpected appointment dated June 11, 
1832, from the American Colonization Society, as its 
agent for the States of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, 
Arkansas and Tennessee. The salary was very small, be- 
ing about a tithe of his professional income; but he ac- 
cepted in the hope of doing good. In the autumn and 
winter of 1832-3 he organized State Colonization Socie- 
ties in four States, and lectured in their principal cities. 
He did not visit Arkansas. 

During these journeys he learned the views of many 
representatives of the slave-holding interest and saw 
more of the workings of slavery. He returned from 
them with the conviction that the Colonization cause was 



11 

hopeless in the far South; thiit the planters in that section 
were bent on maintaining slavery, would listen to no 
scheme of mirigation and would not tolerate dis- 
cussion; that the best way to arrest the develop- 
ment of the evil was to stop the supply of slaves 
from the border States; and that emancipation in the lat- 
ter should be added to Liberian colonization of freedmen 
from the South. This conviction was acted on with his 
characteristic decision. He was in possession of what 
was then considered a large fortune, and there was noth- 
ing to prevent him from devoting his time to the 
work of gradual emancipation in Kentucky. Resigning 
his agenc3% he removed in November, 1833, to his na- 
tive State, where his personal popularity and influen- 
tial connection gave him great advantages for his pro- 
posed work. In the December following he aided 
in organizing at Lexington the Kentucky Grad- 
ual Emancipation Society. Its membership comprised 
between sixtj'- and seventy slave-holders. Some of them, 
for instance, Judge John Green, Professor Buchanan, 
and Dr. Luke Munsell, were men of mark and influence. 
The slave-holding interest, already disturbed and 
alarmed by the Southampton insurrection and emancipa- 
tion in the West Indies, and plotting Texas an- 
nexation, had become agitated to its depths 
throughout the entire South. A movement by slave- 
holders boded serious danger to the system of slave 
labor, and the necessity of suppressing it was manifest. 
A powerful social pressure was brought to bear upon the 
members of the society. The timid among them with 
drew; a prominent clergyman, a native of New England, 
was driven from his pulpit and the State; several found 
it prudent to sell their property and migrate to the States 
north of the Ohio; and. at the end of three months, 



13 

scarce a vestige of the society was left. It did not hold 
a second meeting. This pro -slavery intolerance of dis- 
sent was but the beginning of the popular feel- 
ing which culminated in the mobs and personal 
outrages which dishonored the five years ending 
with 1838 in every part of the Northern States, and in 
the lynchings and murders which were perpetrated in the 
South from 1834 until the time of the Rebellion. For a 
time Mr. Birney was a marked exception to the persecu- 
tion. The kindly feeling towards him, as a favor- 
ite son of Kentucky, was deeply rooted. He 
published articles, made speeches, and held public 
discussions. One in the large Presbyterian church 
at Danville, with Dr. Young, president of Centre Col- 
lege, continued several days, and was attended by im- 
mense crowds. He now informed himself in all the 
literature, law and history of slavery. He studied care- 
fully the National Constitution and the reported legal 
decisions on the subject; and he procured and read the 
works of Clarkson, the speeches of Wilberforce, the Par- 
liamentary and Congressional debates on slavery and the 
slave trade, the works of Hicks, Torrey and Rankin, and 
some or all of the tracts published by the Tap- 
pans at New York. His views ripened rap- 
idly. In May, 1834, he saw clearly that the slave 
himself had rights, and, as soon as the necessary formal- 
ities could be perfected, he emancipated his slaves. This 
marks the date of his final adoption of the Abolition 
doctrines towards which he had been steadily tending 
since August, 1831. 

Becoming convinced that the Colonization Society had 
fallen under slave-holding influences, and had be- 
come a hindrance to emancipation, he resigned the 
vice-presidency of the Kentucky branch, giving his rea- 



1:5 

sons for the step in a letter, which was promptly repiib 
lished in a large pamphlet etlitioh at New York and in 
many Northern papers, and attracted the attention of the 
whole country. Its effect on public opinion may be in- 
ferred from the enthusiasm of the Rev. Dr. Coxe of New 
York, a famous preacher. Referring to it, he said in a 
sermon: 

"A Birney has shaken the continent by putting dov/n 
his foot; and his fame will be envied before his argu- 
ments are answered or their force forgotten." 

If Mr. Birney's sole object had been to damage the 
Colonization Society, the game was hardly worth the 
powder. For the fourteen years preceding 1834, the re- 
ceipts of that society, needing millions for its proposed 
operations, had averaged only about twenty-one thou- 
sand dollars a year. It had never obtained the confi- 
dence of the American people; and the letter made this 
an impossibility. August 19, 1834, Elliott Cressou, the 
leading Colonization agent, wrote of New England that 
the cause had died there ingloriously. September 27, 
1834, R. S. Finley, the western agent, wrote from Ohio: 
"The Abolitionists are gaining ground very rapidly; both 
in Kentucky and this State, James G. Birney has won 
over some of our best friends." The letter had the 
higher object of calling the attention of the nation to the 
urgent duty of taking adequate measures for grappling 
with an evil which was rapidly changing the character 
of the Republic. 

The value, at that time, to the! abolition cause of the 
accession of James G. Birney can hardly be overestimat- 
ed. He was not a vain-glorious egotist, ignorant of pub- 
lic affairs and seeking personal notoriety by intermed- 
dling with them. He had no personal wrongs to imbit- 
ter his spirit. He was no narrow chisel, ground by per- 



14 

secutiou into razor-like sharpness. He was a liberally 
educated man, trained in the law and legislation, of 
broad, social culture, wealth and high standing; he was 
a Southerner, had been a slave-holder, and he knew 
whereof he affirmed; his remarkable candor and moral 
power gave great weight to his words; and a fine, per- 
sonal presence commended him to all who saw him. He 
never overstated a proposition, misrepresented a fact, 
mis(jUOted an antagonist or used needlessly an epithet. 
These were the qualities which secured to him the un- 
bounded confidence of friends and the respect of 
enemies. 

This letter was followed Sept. 2, 1834, by one appeal- 
ing to the Christian sentiment of the South. The follow- 
ing winter and spring were passed in further studies of 
the legal aspects of slavery and in efforts to ascertain and 
rally upon some plan of organized action the opponents 
of slavery in Kentucky. Feeling the need of a medium 
of communication with them, and of explanation to the 
people of the State, he issued a prospectus for a weekly 
paper, the first number of which was to be issued on the 
first day of August, 1835. The ascendency of the slave- 
holding interest had by this time been established, and 
early in July a mass meeting was held at Danville, which 
passed resolutions pledging the persons present to prevent 
at all hazards the proposed publication. A large commit- 
tee was appointed to confer with Mr. Birney. He de- 
clined to yield. The committee then waited on the man 
who owned the printing office and had contracted to pub- 
lish the paper and found means to send him and his fam- 
ily out of the State the same night. They took posses- 
sion of his office under claim of purchase, and gave public 
notice that any man who should thereafter contract to 
print Mr. Birney's paper would be summarily dealt with. 



15 

It was soon made clear to Mr. Birney that he could 
neither print a paper nor hold a meeting in Kentucky, and 
that he could not travel in the State without losing his 
life. Even in his native town the change of public feel- 
ins toward him was marked. His movements were 
watched, his letters and mail scrutinized at the post of- 
rice and the persons to whom he spoke questioned. His 
family, too, were subjected in some degree to wliatisnow 
known as "Boycotting." The end had come. He could 
not remain in Kentucky. Two years of effort in behalf 
of his native State had demonstrated that free speech and 
a free press would not be tolerated within its borders. In 
that brief period the slave power, sensible of its danger, 
and preparing for its great measure, the annex- 
ation of Texas, in from five to nine slave States, 
had revealed its gigantic strength. It controlled the lead- 
ing commercial influences of the country; it was the mas- 
ter of both political parties. At its bidding mobs raged 
in fury through the streets of Utica, New York city, and 
all the principal towns of the North to destroy presses 
and silence speakers known to favor freedom. For lib- 
erty, justice and the rights of free citizens, 1835 was the 
most gloomy year known to American history. As Mr. 
Birney expressed it, the nation was living down the foun- 
dation principles of its government. With the deepest 
sense of the serious danger of the supremacy of the South 
in the Senate, and a determination to do what he could to 
prevent it, he removed to Cincinnati in September, 1835, 
and issued his prospectus fcr the PhiUmthropist. 

In the three years of his experience Mr. Birney had 
been forced by the logic of events and the revelation of 
the astonishing power of the slave-holding interest into a 
position not at first contemplated by him. Beginning 
with a humanitarian effort to enable freedmcn in the far 



16 

South to migrate to Liberia and save the South from the 
horrors of slave insurrections, passing from that to one in 
behalf of his na'.ive State, he found himself an exile from 
that State, and compelled to choose between abandoning 
the contest and grappling with slavery as the great moral 
and political evil of the nation. He did not hesitate. 
That he expected from the very first to accomplish his 
end by political means is proved by the facts already 
stated. He had been bred for politics, had been a public 
man, was a lawyer, and was thoroughly familiar with the 
history of slavery and emancipation. His move- 
ments for colonization and for emancipation in 
Kentucky had all looked to political action. He had pub- 
licly abandoned the Whig party. He was of mature age 
and was not a sentimentalist. His habit of thought was 
eminently practical; he was unable to divorce conviction 
from action: the firstlings of his thought were the first- 
lings of his hand. As a matter of fact he landed in Cin- 
cinnati with a lively sense of the imminent danger of the 
permanent ascendency of the slave-power in national af- 
fairs, and a well-defined intention to organize the anti- 
slavery men of the Xorth for political action. 

It was not long before he found that such an organiza- 
tion was much more difficult than he had supposed. He 
had been under illusions arising from ignora7ice of cer- 
tain peculiarities of Northern thought and social action. 
The North had changed since his life in Princeton and 
Philadelphia. With the peace of 1815 there had begun a 
new era of material prosperity and general education. 
Vast numbers of immigrants had poured into the North- 
ern States; manufacturing industries had been multi^jlied; 
turnpikes, steamboats and railroads had come into use; 
the busy hives of the Eastern States had swarmed to the 
fertile West; newspapers and magazines had quadrupled 



17 

iu number and circulation; common school systems, acad- 
emies, colleges and universities had tilled the North with 
persons of more or less education; religious ne\vsj)apers 
were known for tlie first time; religious revivals were fre- 
quent ; there were popular discussions, great theological 
debates, social reforms. Anti-masonic societies, peace so- 
cieties, religious anniversaries and conventions. The lec- 
ture platform had become an fnstitution: nearly every 
church opened its doors for discourses of itinerant speak- 
ers on every conceivable topic. The lecturers were of 
every grade of intellect and character, ranging from the 
polished professor of astronomy or belles lettres who at- 
tracted cultivated audiences in cities to the seedy "crank" 
who stole around through the country school-houses to 
lecture on the second advent. Most men were engaged 
in the feverish pursuit of wealth; they found recreation 
in the oratory of itinerants. They avoided politics which 
took too much time from business and were of no prac- 
tical utility, the country being destined to prosper. Poli- 
ticians were generally poor and, with a few exceptions, 
little respected. 

Mr. Birney was sadly disappointed to find himself al- 
most alone in his idea of political action. The rank and 
file of the Abolitionists belonged to the intelligent, re- 
spectable, moral and well to- do classes, but most of them 
were rather sentimental than practical. They had a live- 
ly sympathy with fugitive slaves, clear notions of the way 
to operate the underground railroad, great repugnance to 
the use of cotton or other slave-grown product, a strong 
sense of the rights of petition, free speech and a free 
press, of the horror of selling men, women and children 
on the auction block and of the sinfulness of slave-hold- 
ing generally: but the idea of voting their convictions in- 
to practical operation was not yet accepted. That seem 



18 

ed to most of them either inexpedient or carrying a noble 
sentiment into "the dirty mire of politics." The lecturers 
were most of them earnest men; some of them were able, 
elocjuent and elfective. But as a class they were inexper- 
ienced in public affairs. It was impossible, too, to prevent 
the intermeddling of eccentrics. In a certain measure, 
these gave plausible pretexts to the enemies of the cause 
to associate it with erratic notions. One wanted all mon- 
ey abolished by law; another advocated the community 
system of labor; a third, slave insurrection; a fourth, a 
stampede of all the slaves to the North, taking all proper- 
ty they could lay hands on, and there were labored dis- 
quisitions to prove that this was not stealing; a fifth, the 
dissolution of the Union and the secession of the North- 
ern States; a sixth, non-resistance as a philosophy, the 
sinfulness of all systems of force, including penal law 
and human government and as a corollary, the sinfulness 
per se of j>o\iiicid parties, voting and petitioning; a 
seventh, the abolition of jails and dependence upon the 
sentiment of love alone for the restraint of thieves, ruffi- 
ans, robbers and murderers; an eighth had laboriously 
collected all the strongest epithets in the English lan- 
guage to be hurled with little regard to their applicabil- 
ity at slave-holders and their apologists, instead of argu- 
ments; and a ninth, making the false and fatal admis- 
sion that the slaveholders had the Constitution on their 
side, endeavored to attract public attention to themselves 
by stigmatizing the fundamental law as an "agreement 
with death and a covenant with hell." The overmastering 
appetite for personal notoriety greatly prejudiced the anti- 
slavery cause. Some of these gentlemen cultivated oddity 
of personal appearance: they wore Byronic collars and out- 
landish garments or allowed their hair to flow over their 
shoulders or their beards to hang over their breasts. To 



19 

Mr. Birney these people were strange. At first he was 
amused. One day after listening to a gentleman with 
long locks who had spoken well, he said: "Now if some 
friend would only tell him that an Abolitionist need not 
out-hair a buffalo." He was accustomed to say that tlie 
stream would work itself clear in good time of these im- 
purities. 

He resided at Cincinnati two years, where all his ener- 
gies were given to the work. He edited, wrote legal ar- 
guments, made the acquaintance of young men of prom- 
ise, traveled, lectured, attended conventions and anniver- 
saries, spoke to legislative committees, and did everything 
to consolidate and direct to practical purposes the grow- 
ing anti-slavery sentiment of the country. One of his 
first coadjutors in the Philanthropi.st -was Gamaliel Bailey, 
afterwards the distinguished editor. He labored long 
with S. P. Chase, who did not, however, identify himself 
with the cause until 1841. One of his chief objects in 
travel was to converse personally with every leading man 
in the ranks, with a view to harmonize action and direct 
it to political euds. 

In 1836, the N. Y. State Anti-slavery Society passed a 
resolution expressing deep regret that citizens of free 
States should aid in electing men to office who would 
trample under foot the great principles of civil liberty. 
Finding it premature to attempt any national party organ- 
ization at that time, he encouraged in his paper and 
by active private correspondence the practice of ques- 
tioning candidates in localities where practicable, having 
little faith in it but hoping it would lead to something 
better. The results were various: discussio)i was caused, 
the attention of politicians attracted and Abolitionists 
led gradually into concert for political action. During 
these two years, his press was mobbed five times. In 



20 

June, 1836, the mob spirit at Cincinnati was lashed to 
fury by visitors from the South, who made it known that 
the Southern trade of the city depended on the expulsion 
of Mr. Birney and the destruction of his press. A mass 
meeting of thousands was held at the Court House in the 
evening. The mob was to march thence, destroy the 
editor's house and office, and inflict violence on him. 
Among the numerous illustrations of his fearlessness, 
nerve and moral power, his conduct on this occasion may 
be selected for mention. Unaccompanied, except by a 
son seventeen years of age, he attended the meeting. At 
the close of a furious speech against him, Mr. Birney, 
who had been standing near the speaker, stepped forward 
and said: "My name is Birney and I ask to be heard." 
The wildest uproar followed, but, through the influence 
of Gen. Lytle, the presiding officer, quiet was restored. 
Mr. Birney then made one of the best speeches of his life, 
and retired without being molested. On reaching home, 
he saw that about forty pieces of firearms, which he kept 
there for self-defense, were properly loaded and capped. 
The mob did not come that night, but in his absence from 
town in July, it destroyed his press and the entire contents 
of his printing office, throwing them into the 
Ohio River. A number of anti-slavery meetings 
in different cities and towns w^ere broken up by mobs 
in 1836 and early in 1837. Several times his life was en- 
dangered by personal violence. As the year 1838 wore 
on, however, especially after the burning of Pennsylvania 
Hall, the right of citizens to assemble peaceably seemed 
to be won, in most parts of the North. In September, 
1837, Mr. Birney went to New York as the Correspond- 
ing Secretary of the American Anti-slavery Society, turn- 
ing over the Phildnthroput to the Ohio A. S. Society. 
That paper had been a business success from the begin- 



21 

ning, the receipts from subscribers being in excess of 
ordinary expenses. ''Mr. Birney's pecuniary losses, how- 
ever, from the mobs were heavy. 

At that time he had become recognized by l}oth friends 
and enemies as the chief representative of the 
legitimate, practical and constitutional anti-slav- 
ery movement. His intelligence, candor, firmness 
and moderation were known; and he was regarded 
as a safe guide for a cause rec^uiring prudent 
and wise counsel. It is probable that his call to New 
York was dictated by an apprehension on the part of the 
Executive Committee of danger to the cause by an at- 
tempt in certain localities to identify it with the "no 
human government," "no-voting" and woman suff- 
rage movements, between which, in spite of funda- 
mental antagonism in principle, a temporary coali- 
tion had been patched up. On the 16th of Feb- 
ruary, 1838, Hon. F. H. Elmore, of S. C, at the 
instance of the entire Southern delegation in Con- 
gress, wrote to Mr. Birney for full information in regard 
to the anti-slavery movement. In a later letter, Mr. El- 
more said: "I heard of you as a man of intelligence, sin- 
cerity and truth, who, although laboring in a bad cause, 
did it with ability and from a mistaken conviction of its 
justice." In his elaborate answer. Mr. Birney says: 

"The Abolitionists regard the Constitution with una- 
bated affection." They have "nothing to ask except what 
the Constitution authorizes, no change to desire, except 
that the Constitution may be restored to its pristine re- 
publican purity." He speaks of "the ascendancy that 
slavery has acquired and the apprehension that it will 
soon overmaster the Constitution itself ;" of the "usurpa- 
tions on the part of the South and the unworthy conces- 
sions to it by the North"; and alludes to the Missouri 



23 



Compromise "by which ihe nation was wheedled out of 
its honor." This characterized the means adopted by Mr. 
Clay to secure the passage of that measure. He said, 
too, that certain officials in New Hampshire and Vermont, 
who had spoken contemptuously of anti-slavery men, 
would "soon be made to see the grossness of their error." 
The letter clearly looked to political action. While Mr. 
Birney was preparing it, his friend, William Jay, who 
had adopted his views, was preparing his remarkable 
book on "The Action of ihe Federal Government in Be- 
half of Slavery." This was published in 1838 and had a 
large circulation. A still larger and revised edition was 
published in 1839. Mr. Birney 's efforts at New York 
were directed to strengthen the practical side of anti- 
slavery action; to stimulate local organization for obtain- 
ing legislative action in behalf of trial by jury and of 
personal liberty. Instead of centralizing, he preferred 
measures requiring discussion and action in every town- 
ship and county. Four hundred and forty societies were 
organized in the first year; sixty lecturers, prudently 
chosen, and free from the "no-human-government" 
heresy, were sent out; and tracts and newspapers were 
liberally distributed. He visited in person the principal 
cities and lectured chiefl}' on the political encroachments 
of slavery; and, in the summer of 1838, at a large con- 
vention in Northern Ohio, he publicly declared his con- 
viction that all the anti-slavery agitation would be sterile 
unless it resulted in the formation of a national political 
party. He thought the time had come. On his return to 
New York, he prepared a clear and terse statement of his 
reasons, and had it sent in lithographed form to all the 
leading anti slavery men, soliciting their views in return. 
The discussion on this subject grew general and threat- 
ened disruption. At first, the majority was hostile; but 



23 

the project gained friends nipidly. Eli/.iir Wright. Jolin 
G. Whittier, Alvan Stewart, Gerrit Smith, Ikriah Green, 
William Goodcll, Joshua Leavilt. Samuel Lewis, ex- 
Senator Thomas Morris, Dr. Brisbane, Thomas Earle. 
Myron Ilolley and other leaders concurred. 
The Rochester Freeman was chosen, becau.se of 
its unot^cial character, to l)e the first |)apcr to advocate 
it; and it was followed l)y the Emancipator, Friend of 
Man and Maf^sachusetta Abolitioni.st; but the Liberator, 
with its following, was hostile, and all the other anti 
slavery papers either wavering or lukewarm. Six State 
anti slavery societies condemned it. "Great numbers of 
professed Abolitionists were too closely wedded to their 
parties to abandon them," and a few had adopted the 
anarchical ideas of the "no-human-government" faction 
and were disposed rather to throw off all political respon- 
sibilities than to add to them. Mr. Birney remained firm. 
In the early part of 1839, he thus characterized the plan 
of questioning candidates and its fruitlessness: 

"Our political movement, heretofore, may be compared 
to the wake of a vessel at sea, never increasing in length, 
no matter how many thousands of miles she may sail."^ ^ 
"I look on the independent party movement as proof, not 
only of the. greater force and energy of the anti-slavery 
cause, but of its greater expansion; and I am not more 
surprised at it than I would be at seeing the young of a 
noble bird, grown too large for the nest, and feeling its 
strength and courage equal to the attempt, committing 
itself to the bosom of the air and training its powers in 
the region of thunders and lightnings and storms." 

It is to the writings of Mr. Birney and AYm. Jay that 
the student of the political aspects of the earl}' anti-slavery 
movement must go for light. They are the armory from 
which the orators, platform makers and writers of the 
anti-slavery political party took their weapons for many 
years. The best history of the aggressions of the slave 



24 

power may be found in the writings of Mr. Birney; and 
it was be wbo first presented in many ligbts the doctrine 
of the inherent antagonism of the free and slave labor 
systems, under a common government. The phrase "ir- 
repressible conflict" uttered in 1860 by Mr. Seward, was 
used before 1840, by Mr. Birney. In 1840 he wrote: 

"The conclusion of the whole matter is that as a people 
we are trying an experiment as unphilosophical in theory 
as it has been, and ever will be, found impossible in prac- 
tice: to make a harmonious whole out of parts that are, 
in principle and essence, discordant. It is in vain to 
think of a sincere union between the Xorth and the 
South, if the first remain true to her republican princi- 
ples and habits and the latter persist in her slave-holding 
despotism. They are incapable from their natures of 
being made one. * * * 'Oneor the other must,in the end, 
gain the entire ascendency.' " (See letter of acceptance) . 

One of the most able and instructive documents of the 
anti-slavery conflict was Mr. Birney's letter of March, 
1838, in answer to a demand for information about anti- 
Flavery designs and measures, made upon him by Mr. 
Calhoun and other South Carolina Congressmen. The 
several letters of Mr. Elmore, who wrote in behalf of his 
colleagues, disclose the high respect felt by the South for 
Mr. Birney. In the one of May 5th he says: 

"I heard of you as a man of intelligence, sincerity and 
truth: who, though laboring in a bad cause, did it with 
ability and from a mistaken conviction of its justice." 

No man stood higher in the esteem of both friends and 

foes than the subject of this sketch. President Kello^o- 

of Illinois, who visited England in 1844, four years after 

Mr. Birney's visit there, thus writes: 

"It was truly refreshing to me while I was in Great 
Britain, amid the many complaints against my country- 
men, to which I was ol)liged to listen, to hear excel 
lent friend, James G. Birney, so frequently spoken of and 
always in terms of unqualified approbation and respect." 






As Mr. Birney had been for several months before the 
British public as a speaker, this tribute to him is valuable. 
No man who has taken a i>romiuent part for twelve years 
in a heated controversy can have altogether escaped using 
personalities. The only occasion on which Mr. Birney 
ever used one was when he found himself obliged by Mr. 
Adams' course in Congress to warn Abolitionists to with- 
hold their confidence from the man who had so nobly 
maintained the right of free mails, free press, free speech 
and free petition. For these services the Abolitionists 
had elected Mr. Adams to Congress, where he had re- 
fused to vote for the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia, or for rejecting the application of Florida for 
admission as a slave State; and he had spoken contempt- 
uously of the characteristic doctrines of the voting Aboli- 
tionists. Mr. Birney in a published letter stated the facts 
and said: 

"Mr. Adams owes much of his present popularity, may 
I not say nearly all? to his connection with the anti slav- 
ery agitation. Abolitionists have contributed more than 
any other class of persons to swell the tide of his Lnllu- 
ence. That influence is now active in fortifying against 
them every practicable point at which they have attacked 
slavery in this country; and his quasi sympathy with them 
gives it an independent and unusual force." "His course 
in my judgment has been eccentric, whimsical and incon- 
sistent; defended in part by weak and inconclusive not to 
say frivolous arguments; and taken as a whole, thus far, 
is unworthy of a statesman of large views and a right 
temper in a great national conjuncture." 

So long as John Quincy Adams was true to right prin- 
ciples he had no better friend than James G. Birney. To 
Senators Morris, Chase, Sumner, and AVilson, as also to 
Slade, Giddings, Wilraot, Lovejoy and other true men in 
Congress, Mr. Birney always extended cordial sympathy. 
With his co-laborers, William Jay, theTappans, Theodore 



26 

D. Weld, Joshua Leavitt, H. B. Stanton, Elizur Wright, 
Beriah CTreen, Gerrit Smith, Samuel Lewis, Dr. Bailey, 
Dr. Brisbane, Jonathan Blanchard, Leicester King, Wil- 
liam Goodell and other noble men he always lived in un- 
interrupted friendship. Between Mr. Weld and himself 
the relation was for life that of two brothers. 

In 1838 it became his duty, as the leading representa- 
tive of the political-action Abolitionists, to declare pub- 
licly what was already an accomplished fact, — that the 
"no-human government" faction at Boston had with- 
drawn itself from the main Abolition movement and 
ought to withdraw from the American Anti-slavery 
Society. He did this without reflecting upon the motives 
or honesty of individuals, putting it upon the ground 
that they had changed their views since joining the 
Society, the constitution and declaration of which recog- 
nized the U. S. Constitution and the law, both of which 
were rejected by the "no-human government," non-resist- 
ant, non-voting party. He said (See Emancipator, 
May 1, 1839) : 

"Could they be agreed and could they walk together? 
It seems to me not. And simply because their aim. their 
objects are radically and essentially different. So with 
the no-government and the pro-government Abolitionists. 
One party is for sustaining and purifying governments 
and bringing them into perfect conformity with the prin- 
ciples of divine government,— the other for destroying 
all government." 

The fact is that the no-human government faction had 
covered up and lost sight of abolition, piling upon it a 
great number of temporary notions and transcendental 
absurdities such as: the sinfulness of force in all its man- 
ifestations, whether congresses, legislatures, courts or 
jails or slavery. AVith them it was a sin to vote for the 
abolition of slavery. Oddly enough they made anexcep- 



27 

tiou in favor of petitioning; but they never explained how 
they could petition Congress to act when it could not act 
without sini ^Ir, Garrison and Henry 0. Wright were 
the leaders in this m« and the Lihcraior was used to pro- 
pagate it. Mr. Birney's letter marked the ])oint at which 
the voting Abolitionists went one wav and the "no-hu- 
man government" men another, never to meet again. 
The former organized in 1840 the Liberty party; the lat- 
ter after running in full stream a little while, distributed 
itself into numerous rivulets, such as Grahamism, spirit- 
ualism, spirit materialization, photo-spiritism, abolition 
of money., secession, disunion, Henry Clayism, ruin of 
the church, overthrow of the clergy, "constitution a cov- 
enant with death and an agreement with hell," which 
were soon absorbed by the sands and dried up utterly. 
During the war, the non-resistants recanted their heresies 
and atoned for them as far as they could. At the 
present time, it is not likely that a single man exists, out 
of Russia, who holds the no-government, non-resistant 
notions; and although rhetorical attempts have been made 
to appropriate to Mr. Garrison as disciples, the Republi- 
can party, the Kansas settlers, John Brow^n and Abraham 
Lincoln, it would puzzle a Garrisonian to prove these to 
have been non-resistants. Mrs. Stowe suggests that Mr. 
Garrison's denunciations of the Liberty party may have 
helped to build it up. Perhaps so: but the ditFiculty was 
that among his numerous isms, he claimed Abolitionism, 
and popular prejudice long held the Liberty party respon- 
sible for all of them. The relation betw^een Mr. G. and 
the political Abolitionists was something like that now 
existing between Kernan of the Okalona States and the 
Democrats, or between O'Donovan Rossa and the party 
of Irish independence; he brought discredit on them al- 
though they disowned him. 



28 

In August, 1839, Mr. Birney't father died intestate, 
leaving two heirs. The property consisted of money and 
twenty-seven slaves. Mr. Birney took the slaves, setting 
off twenty thousand dollars to his co-heir as their value, 
freed them and provided homes for them. Nearly all of 
them turned out well. 

In the autumn of 1839 a convention of anti-slavery 
men in western New York nominated James G. Birney 
for President of the United States. He declined, his 
view being that the candidacy would cripple his use- 
fulness, that the convention was not national, and 
that longer discussion would better unite the anti- 
slavery men. Upon all his friends he urged the propriety 
of nominating the Hon. William Jay, who was in every 
way competent, and who had contributed to the cause 
the best book on its political aspects. But Mr. Jay and 
all the friends of the movement insisted that he should 
be the standard bearer. No other name was considered 
at any subsequent convention. State or national, for the 
campaigns of 1840 and 1844. On the 2d of April, 1840, 
a national convention, held in Albany, nominated James 
G. Birney for President, and Thomas Earle for Vice- 
President. A still larger general convention was held at 
New York, May 11, 1840, and ratified the nominations. 
The ensuing campaign was marked by a popular frenzy 
seldom equaled in this country. It is known in political 
history as the "log cabin and hard cider campaign." 
Trivial issues took precedence of vital ones. Abolition- 
ists were courted by Gen. Harrison and wheedled by Hor- 
ace Greeley into the support of two Virginians, both 
pledged to the slave-power. It was impossible, too, to 
get correct returns of ballots cast, the Abolition vote not 
being considered that of a regular party organization; 
about seven thousand votes, however, were returned. 



29 

The party had not Efiven itself a name, and was known 
during the campaign by several n»mes: Anti-slavery, 
Abolition, True Democrat. Liberty and Republican. The 
result of the campaign was very encouraging. 

May 12, 1S41, a large national Anti-slavery conven- 
tion was held at New York, and unanimously nominated 
Mr. Birney for President, with ex-Senator Thomas Mor- 
ris for Vice-President. This nomination was not accept- 
ed, being regarded by him as premature. August :ji), 
1843, a large national convention at Bullalo renominated 
the ticket in the name of the "Liberty Party," which 
name had gradually supplanted other names in popular 
usage. 

In the campaign of 1844, it was generally calculated 
that the number of anti-slavery voters was about one 
hundred thousand; the managers of the Liberty Party 
expected more. The voting in 1843 in the different 
States had revealed a steadily increasing party strength; 
and neither of the candidates of the two large parties 
had apparently any prospect of gaining any votes among 
anti-slavery men. Mr. Polk was a slave-holder, and Mr. 
Clay Was not only a slave-holder but the most able repre- 
sentative of the slave power. It was ]\Ir, Clay who had 
succeeded in gaining the admission of Missouri as a slave 
State, the greatest political crime in our country's 
annals; it was Mr. Clay who had, as Secretary of State, 
negotiated with Oreat Britain for pay for slaves; and it 
was Mr. Clay who had been the bitter assailant of Aboli- 
tionists and advised their exclusion from social life. Be- 
sides, he was notoiiously a gambler and duellist, and, for 
that reason alone, not a popular candidate in the North. 
His nomination was a defiance of the anti-slavery men 
of the country who had, in sundry conventions, de- 
nounced him as an enemy. As the campaign waxed hot 



30 

and chances were seen to be about equal, Democrats and 
Whigs alike appealed to the anti-slavery men for votes. 
As the election drew near and Clay's chances were seen 
to be growing less, the appeals of the Whigs became al- 
most frantic. Horace Greeley, then a violent Whig parti- 
san, but who had for years, in the N. Y. Tribune, adopt- 
ed a friendly tone toward the Abolitionists, and who had 
thought himself able to deliver their votes to his chief, 
Mr. Clay, redoubled his entreaties, arguments and ap- 
peals. David Lee Childs, editor of the Anti-iSlavery 
Standard, the Garrisonian organ at New York, aposta- 
tized both from Garrisonianism and anti-slavery, 
and threw his influence publicly for Clay. The 
Whig papers abounded in false statements. Mr. 
Birney was abused and cajoled by turns. The last 
resort of the Whigs w^as the "Garland forgery," concoct- 
ed by the Whig Central Committee of Michigan. It pur- 
ported to be a letter from James G. Birney to one Gar- 
land, a resident of his Legislative District in Michigan, 
soliciting the Democratic nomination for the Legislature 
and declaring his Democracy and his intention to defeat 
Henry Clay. It purported to be duly sworn to and to be 
printed on an extra of the Oakland Oazette. This in- 
famous document was printed at New York by the 
Whigs in immense quantities, and sent to active Whigs in 
every county in the Northern States, with instructions 
not to circulate it until after the first of November. In 
western New York it was withheld until the 3rd, on 
which day it was known that Mr. Birney, who had been 
in the State for about a month, expected to leave Buffalo 
in a steamboat for Detroit. He did not leave on that 
day, and a copy of the forgery fell into his hands. As 
far as possible he contradicted it; but it was too late to 
expose the political crime fully. The National Intelli- 



31 

gcncer, Porthmd Advertiser, and Ohio State Journal were 
among the papers that published this forgery; and the 
Whig State committee of Indiana issued a public address 
containing it; but the contrivers of the use made of the 
forgery were doubtless at New York. The ])robable 
knowledge by Horace Greeley of this electioneering trick 
and the evasiveness of his disclaimer put an end 
to the friendly relations between him and Mr. Bir- 
ney. Mr. Greeley gave orders that Mr. Birney's name 
should not be mentioned in the Tribune thereafter, and 
carefully avoided all mention of it in his large work on 
the history of the anti-slavery conflict, except in the elec- 
tion returns. His bitter malice ended only with Mr. Bir- 
ney's death. The effect of the "Garland forgery" prob- 
ably was to diminish Mr. Birney's vote at least half. In 
Ohio, where it was not exposed except in the northeast- 
ern part of the State, Mr. Birney lost several thousand 
votes, most of which went to Mr. Clay. The Whigs car- 
ried the State by a plurality of between four and five 
thousand. In New York the Whigs gained largely, but 
not enough by 5,107 to carry the State. In spite of the 
forgery the Liberty party polled 62,263 votes in all the 
States. 

This staunchness of the anti-slavery men in 1844 saved 
the party from disbandment. In 1848 there was a large 
accession from the Democratic party, and it polled 291,- 
000 votes; in 1852 many of the VanBuren men fell off, 
but it polled 156,000 votes; in 1856, on the breaking up 
of the Whig party for want of any principle of cohesion, 
the anti-slavery party polled over 1,300,000: and in 1860 
it elected its ticket. Whether under the name of Anti- 
slavery party. Liberty, Free Soil or Republican, its 
main political principle was unchanged. September 3 
1835, the officers and Executive Committee of the Amer- 



32 

ican Acti-slavery Society, in an address signed by them, 
said: "We hold that Congress has no more right to abol- 
ish slavery in the Southern States than Congress has in 
the West India Islands." In 1840 the platform of the 
party was the "abolition of slavery wherever it exists un- 
der the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress and to prevent 
its further extension." etc. In 1841 the Liberty party of 
Ohio resolved: "That we expressly disclaim, in behalf of 
the general Government, all right to interfere with slav- 
ery in the States where it exists." The party Vfus not a 
whit more conservative in ls6(» than in 1840. 

In the summer of 1845 Br. Birney, who was then re- 
siding in Michigan, was thrown from a horse. A stroke 
of paralysis followed which disabled him for publi; life. 
He had a genial and happy old age, surrounded by rela- 
tives and friends. He lost none of his interest in the 
progress of the struggle, and, after the breaking out of 
the Kansas difticulties, he gave up the hope that slavery 
would be peaceably abolished but thought the aggres- 
sions of the slave power would lead to civi war He 
died in 1857. 



THE CHIEF WRITINGS OF MR. BIRNEY WERE 

AS FOLLOWS : 

1. Ten letters on Sldvery and Colonization, addressed 
to R R. Gurley, the first dated July 12, 1833, the last 
December 11, 1838. 

2. 8ix essays on same, published in the Huntsville 
(Ala.) Advocate, in May. June and July, 'H33. 

3. Le'ter on Colonization, resigning Vice-presidency 
of Ky. Colonization Society, July 15, 1834. 

4. Letters to Presbyterian Church, 1834. 

5. Addresses and !<peeches, 1835. 

6. Vindication of the Abolitionists, 1835. 

7. The Philanthropist, a weekly newspaper, 1836 and 
to Sept., 1837. 

8. Letter to Col. Stone, May, 1836. 

9. Address to Slaveliolders, October, 1836. 

10. Argitntent on Ftujitive Slave Case, 1837. 

11. Letter to F. H. Elmore, of South Carolina, 1838. 

12. Political Obligations of Abolitionists, 1839. 

13. Report on the Duty of Political Action, for Execu- 
tive Committee of the American Anti-slavery Society, 
May. 1839. 

14. American Churches the Bulwarks of American 
Slavery, 1840. 

15. Speeches in England, 1840. 

16. Letter of Ac ceptanre. 

17. Articles in Q. A. S. Magazine and Emancipator, 
1837—1844. 

18. Examination of the Derision of the TJ. 8. Supreme 
Court, in the case of Strader tt at, vs. Graham, 1850. 



I 



LIBRPRY OF CONGRESS 




011 838 191 9 




